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August 17, 2004

"Feed Me, Stephanie Seymour!": Supreme Court Feeder Judge Rankings

Article III Groupie is terribly behind in terms of responding to reader mail and preparing future posts. Part of the problem is that Kiss Me, Guido generated a tremendous amount of reader responses--somepositive (ah, schadenfreude), some negative, and some mixed. So, if you e-mailed A3G about her ruminations on Guido, please know that she will respond to you (eventually), either by e-mail or in an "Amended Opinions" post concerning "Kiss Me, Guido."

Several UTR readers were a little disturbed by the tone of "Kiss Me, Guido," which some appear to regard as an act of drive-by character assassination. A3G would urge you not to take the post too seriously. After all, any judicial profile that calls itself an E! True Hollywood Story should not be accepted at face value. But, to those of you who remain somewhat angry at Article III Groupie, she would like to make this peace offering: UTR's Supreme Court Feeder Judge Rankings!

These rankings are "just the facts, ma'am"; editorial commentary, in the form of Article III Groupie's theory of feeding and her taxonomy of feeder judges, will appear at a later date. For additional raw data, click here to access a very handy table, prepared by the career services office of the University of Michigan Law School, listing all lower court judges whose clerks have gone on to clerk for the Supreme Court, from 1989 to 2003. (Sure, you could have used the Michigan table to prepare your own feeder judge rankings, but Article III Groupie has done the work for you.)

A few preliminary comments:

1. Article III Groupie has provided two rank lists below. The first list, ranking the top 20 feeders for the past ten (10) terms, shows which feeder judges have staying power, in terms of well-established track records as feeders. The second list, ranking the top 20 feeders for the past five (5) terms, shows which feeder judges have had the greatest success in recent history.

After all, feeder judges, like hemlines, go up and down. To show you which feeder judges appear to be on the rise as feeders, Article III Groupie has highlighted, in the five-term list, those judges with feeder momentum, i.e., feeder judges who go up in the rankings when one moves from the ten-term list to the five-term list. Think of these boldface-type judges as bulleted entries in the Billboard Hot 100. (Of course, some powerful feeder judges--such as the #1 feeder, Judge Luttig--don't have upward momentum because they're already at the top of the list.)

2. UTR's rankings are based on the lower court judges whose names appear on the official lists of Supreme Court law clerks that are issued each year by the Public Information Office of the Supreme Court. The lists generally show only one prior clerkship for each Supreme Court clerk, typically the most recent prior clerkship, which means that if a Supreme Court clerk had more than one previous clerkship, such information will not appear in the lists.

For purposes of UTR's feeder judge rankings, however, Article III Groupie is willing to give credit to any judge that a member of the Elect clerked for prior to attaining divine status. This makes sense because sometimes the lower court judge omitted from the list played a larger role in feeding the clerk to the Court than the judge whose name does appear on the list. So, if you are aware of a Supreme Court clerk's prior clerkship that is not reflected in the official lists, please e-mail Article III Groupie and inform her of (a) the Supreme Court clerk in question and (b) the omitted prior clerkship. She will adjust the rankings accordingly.

3. These rankings do not reflect the latest class of the Elect. Although the Supreme Court clerks for October Term 2004 have already reported for work, the official list of clerks is not yet available, at least as far as A3G knows. If anyone happens to have the law school and prior clerkship information for this year's crop of the Anointed, Article III Groupie will pay good money for it! (Well, actually, she won't--but if you send it to her, you will earn her undying gratitude.)

Preparing this list has been emotionally draining for A3G. Having been forced to review the names of some of the people who beat her out for Supreme Court clerkships (and ruined her life), Article III Groupie is on the verge of tears. So she hopes that you are grateful for this public service that she has provided!

P.S. The title of this post, a reference The Little Shop of Horrors, mentions Tenth Circuit Judge Stephanie Seymour in order to maintain maximum fidelity to the original line from the movie (in which the monstrous plant Audrey 2 demands of Seymour Krelboin, "Feed me, Seymour!"). As far as A3G knows, however, Judge Seymour--despite being a judicial hottie--has not sent any of her clerks to the Court during the past ten terms.